This Christmas season was the most difficult of my life after having told my husband that my kids and I would be happier if he weren’t a part of our lives. That cloud of sharp-edged honesty hovered in the air as we tried to carry on our festivities with our usual giddiness. Even in the […]

When I recently ran into a fellow mom and asked her how she was, she exhaled in exhaustion, “Oh, I just lost my sh** over a Skittle in the car with my kids.” I snorted from laughing so hard because I loved her guttural, awesome honesty. We went on to talk about how you can […]

Sometimes I feel very little real connection to others’ suffering because it’s not in my face. I wake up in the morning, make coffee and listen to public radio. I yawn on the deck and look up at the stars. I scoot my kids out the door, and I go to a day job that […]

You want to be happy? Stop reading articles about how to be happy. I’ve been a complete sucker for online articles that claim to have the secret formula to happiness, self fulfillment and peace. I’m the first one to scoff at them, but I’m also the first one to hungrily click on the links, hoping […]

I never would have imagined I’d be grateful to feel nothing for the man I once said marriage vows to. Today would have been our 13th wedding anniversary, but instead today we are teetering on the edge of being strangers to each other, thankfully. It was grueling to have feelings of anything stronger than lukewarm […]

When I was in my 20s I won a sexual harassment settlement from a place I worked. The incident is so far behind me now that it’s been a while since I’ve thought about it, but having kids has a way of pushing long-forgotten events into focus to remind me to raise my kids with […]

Am I the only one who’s felt myself slowly getting dumber—more dumb? (my case in point) – as a result of “binge watching” things on Netflix? I don’t possess the self-control to watch just one episode, much in the same way I cannot eat just one potato chip. I don’t buy chips for this lack of self-discipline, […]

What’s your initial reaction when you see someone at your door? Hide, cringe, roll your eyes, and make sure you have clothes on? Yep, me too. I’ve pretended no one was home when I’ve heard the doorbell ring. I probably analyze life a little too much at times, but I caught myself doing this years […]

I did something really jerky the other day in front of my 6-year-old son. We came to a red light and saw a homeless man sitting on the median with a sign that read, “Homeless,” so no guesswork was needed as to what he was doing. He was holding a crucifix next to the sign, and […]

Every parent has had visions of escaping it all just for a bit to have some alone time to remember they are people aside from just being parents, to revisit goals that have been pushed aside, and to take an invigorating breath to remind ourselves we’ve got this. I do get this alone time when […]